


Pressing You Down

by darter_blue



Series: Pressure [5]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bottom Bucky Barnes, Bucky barnes thigh appreciation, Captain America Steve Rogers/Modern Bucky Barnes, Car Sex, Competence Kink, Fluff and Smut, Light Bondage, Light Dom/sub, M/M, POV Steve Rogers, Praise Kink, Protective Steve Rogers, Rimming, Shrunkyclunks, Smut, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:46:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24231568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darter_blue/pseuds/darter_blue
Summary: Steve Rogers is a master tactician, a supersoldier, a born leader. So why is it, as the team are closing in on an epic mission, two years in the making, that Bucky Barnes (and his thighs, lets face it, men have bled for less) and the possibility of he and Steve having a future together, might be enough to compromise everything his team have worked so long for.Actually, maybe it doesn't have to...Maybe everything is about to work out exactly the way Steve wants it to.Well... A man can dream.For my Bucky Barnes Bingo square: U3/ 'That wasn't nice'post script: if I had a bingo square for thighs of betrayal, this would have been the epitome ;)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: Pressure [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1696774
Comments: 86
Kudos: 376
Collections: Bucky Barnes Bingo 2020





	Pressing You Down

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! 
> 
> As promised, a mere week later! Steve's POV and the (almost) conclusion. 
> 
> Softer, sexier, some body worship. These boys are just loving on each other.
> 
> I hope you like it.
> 
> As always, if you're new here, I recommend you go on back to part 1, but, as always, I am not the boss of you ;)

Steve is watching Bucky walk away, watching him take the stairs two at a time, his lengthened stride pulling at the fabric of the borrowed sweat pants and stretching it across his thighs. 

Those thighs… 

‘Steve,’ Nat says quickly and quietly, dragging his attention back to herself, 'I was going through Bucky's contacts, we might have a problem.'

Steve's attention sharpens and locks into Nat's statement, 'What kind of problem?'

'Becka, Bucky's sister-'

'Nat, no,' he says, hoping she's not about to tell him what he absolutely doesn't want to hear.

'Steve, she's been in touch with Tony. Stark Industries picked her up earlier this afternoon-'

'Fuck.' shit, fucking, shit.

'It doesn't seem like she's had any kind of contact with him or SI before today. That's not a good sign.'

'Tony wouldn't hurt her,' Steve says, determined to believe it.

'I agree that he wouldn't, for now.'

Steve crosses his arms at the implication. He doesn’t like it, but Natasha is used to analysing situations objectively. Not listening to her would be a mistake.

'The timing of this is not helping Tony's case, I have to say.' 

'He could be reaching out because Bucky has disappeared,' Steve is rationalising on the fly, 'it could be all well intentioned.'

'Why go straight to his sister?' Nat asks, semi rhetorically, 'Why not go to the police first, or his boss?'

'Because of me,' Steve answers, 'Because he... however he did it, he recognised my voice and he knows something is wrong.' 

'Which in itself is suspicious, right?'

'Yes and no,' Steve isn't just projecting, 'It's a possibility that Tony still thinks I'm AWOL,' they can't assume Tony is guilty for the same reasons that they can't assume he’s not. 'Maybe he doesn't want to get any authorities involved.'

Nat looks at him and mirrors his pose, arms crossed, chin up. She's calculating risk against reward. 

‘No, Nat, it’s too dangerous,’ Steve knows that look and it’s nothing that he’s going to want to have to tell Bucky. Nothing that Bucky, who shouldn’t, by any rights, have a part to play in this at all, ‘Bucky and his sister are civilians, we are not putting them in harm’s way.’

‘They might already be in harm’s way.’

Which was one hundred fucking percent Steve’s fault. Fuck.

‘Okay. Okay,’ Steve steps back and sets his hands to his hips, ‘First we talk to Bucky. We keep him a part of any decisions we make about this.’

Nat looks at him critically, searching for something, likely finding it pretty easily. Of all of them, Steve is the worst at hiding anything in his expression. She nods, ‘Understood,’ and turns back to the boys in the kitchen to help finish up with dinner. She turns back to Steve just as he’s about to make his way upstairs, ‘Be careful, don’t just blurt it out.’

‘I know what I’m doing,’ Steve says, resentful of the implication that he would hurt Bucky by being careless. Natasha’s returning look suggests he’s kidding himself. 

Well. 

He’ll just go up there and wrap Bucky up in his arms and carefully let him know that everything will be fine - they just need to figure out what Tony’s angle is. Steve knows Tony, he knows he’s not this, he’s not Hydra (Steve has been wrong before, so nobody is listening to Steve about this). If he’s brought Bucky’s sister to Stark Tower it’s to find out what happened to Bucky, to try and help, to try and find _Steve_. It would never be to hurt her.

He gets to the bedroom and can hear the water still running. Just the idea of Bucky in the shower has Steve’s feet moving a little faster. He calls out to Bucky so as not to scare him and when he hears his voice, pushes through the door. It’s steamy and the down lights have Bucky in a sort of warm glow. There’s no curtain on the shower, it’s in the old claw tub against the ensuite wall and Clint had a hinged glass screen put on so that Steve would stop flooding the bathroom with his giant supersoldier shoulders.

Steve is aware that he’s here with bad news, there’s… something he’s here to say… but Bucky is very distracting, just standing there under the running water, looking back at Steve expectantly, his metal arm gleaming, the dark lashes framing his grey eyes are gathering droplets, more sluicing down all the tight, lean muscle of his upper body, his slightly softer waist, past a round ass and down thick thighs, those fucking thighs that have Steve forgetting himself.

‘Steve?’ Bucky asks, waiting for whatever it is that Steve has come to tell him.

Which is important. 

‘We might have a problem...’ he says, staving off having to frame it in any kind of articulate way, while Bucky shuts the water off, but is just standing there, dripping. 

‘What’s happened?’

Steve tries to distract himself by passing Bucky a towel, and god, he has to physically hold himself back from stroking all that soft olive skin. Jesus, he needs to get a fucking grip.

What has happened? Oh god, Tony.

‘It’s Tony.’

‘What’s Tony?’ Bucky asks, which is a reasonable question, because the carefully constructed conversation Steve is supposed to be having with Bucky has been brutalised by Steve’s shitty hind brain. 

‘He found your sister.’ And he knows as soon as he’s said it that it was the absolute worst thing he could’ve said. Because Bucky is frozen, and suddenly his eyes are rolling back into his head and he’s falling. 

‘Bucky!’ Steve shouts, rushing forward, thanking the useless fucking American government for his reflexes as he somehow makes it past the glass screen to catch him before his head hits the lip of the tub. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck!’

It’s Sam who’s first through the door, probably having been sent by Nat and then hearing the shout on his way up.

‘Steve, you guys okay?’ he calls out from the bedroom.

‘Sam!’

He’s sliding through the door in seconds.

‘He fainted, I think… he just…’

‘Okay, Steve, let me check him, put him down, he’s okay,’ Sam is saying. Steve is half listening and half panicking. The listening half of him wins out and he lays Bucky down onto the bath mat then crawls back to let Sam in.

‘He just went stiff and fell…’ Steve is saying. Jesus, he had one job, one fucking job. How much of a clusterfuck has this whole thing turned into because Steve has decided to let his dick take over the thinking, exclusively. 

‘Bucky, I’m checking your pulse okay?’ Sam is saying to a still unconscious Bucky, his fingers are on Bucky’s wrist and he’s got one eye on his watch. ‘His pulse is okay,’ he says, turning to Steve, ‘a little low, but it’s not dangerous,’ he turns back to Bucky again, ‘Now I’m having a quick look at your eyes, easy does it, okay?’ he leans in and raises one and then the other of Bucky’s eyelids. ‘I don’t have my kit, but his pupils are constricting from the down lights, which is a good sign. I say we get him up and onto the bed-’

Steve is lifting him before Sam can even finish. He carries Bucky bridal style to the bed and lays him down as gently as he can. Bucky starts to stir as his head hits the pillow, and Steve is right there, his arm still wrapped around the back of Bucky’s neck as he comes to and opens his eyes slowly, blearily, to Steve’s intensely close face. 

‘Stevie?’ Bucky says, soft and hushed. And oh god, Steve’s stomach drops. He’s in so much trouble.

‘Hey Buck, you scared the shit out of me,’ Steve says, leaning in and pressing a kiss to Bucky’s temple.

Bucky looks up at Steve, smiles for a half second and then sits up in a panic, nearly bowling Steve off the bed, ‘Becka!’

‘It’s okay, it’s okay, she’s fine.’

‘She’s fine?’ he asks, eyes wide, ‘You found her? Did you talk to her?’

Steve tries to hide the guilt from his features, probably an impossible task, ‘We didn’t, not yet-’ he holds his hand over Bucky’s chest, shaking his head before Bucky can interrupt, ‘We know that Tony contacted her and then drove her to Stark Tower, we’re not sure in what capacity, but it’s all above board.’ Steve finishes with. He hopes it doesn’t turn out he’s a fucking liar.

‘What does he want with her?’ Bucky is trying to sit up, but Steve has his hand on his chest, and he wants to keep Bucky still, just until he’s sure he’s okay. 

‘We think maybe he wants to ask her about you, maybe me,’ Steve says, which is their best and least scary guess.

‘Oh god, Becka,’ Bucky lets Steve hold him down, lets his head fall back onto the pillow, ‘No, no, no.’

‘Bucky, you need to try not to panic,’ Sam says from behind Steve, moving closer to the bed, ‘You’re not going to do Becka any good if you hyperventilate.’ 

Bucky’s breaths have been speeding up, but he closes his eyes at Sam’s words, tries to deepen them a little.

‘Buck, we’re gonna talk to Nat, she has some ideas about where to go from here.’ Steve is carding his hands through Bucky’s wet hair now, trying to help him calm down, but Sam gives him a dirty look over Bucky’s head. He is not happy with Steve about something.

‘Maybe it would be better for you to just stay up here and rest for a bit, Bucky,’ Sam says. He’s using his everything-is-fine-and-nothing-hurts voice that always works to calm Steve down when he starts to spiral. It’s warring in him right now as to whether he’s calmed or annoyed by it. 

‘No, I wanna know everything you know. I want to see everything Nat has,’ Bucky says, and Steve can feel his strength in how hard he is pushing against his hand. Steve has to decide whether to exert force or just let him up. He goes with letting him up - he’s not hurting anyone, and his breathing is normalising, if not escalating a little with the exertion of pushing against Steve. ‘Let me up, Steve, please?’

And Steve let’s go at the please, because he can’t say no to that look on Bucky’s face. Sam is looking pissed, and Steve chooses to ignore him, in favour of helping Bucky up and getting him standing.

‘Uh, I should maybe get dressed…’ Bucky says, looking down at his naked self, his towel having mostly dropped as he got up off the bed. Sam has turned around and Steve rushes to help him get the towel back around his waist.

‘I’ll wait outside,’ Sam says, walking out and waving behind him without turning around. ‘No Funny Business!’ He calls through the closed door. ‘He needs to REST.’

‘I need my bag,’ Bucky says, holding the towel around his waist with his metal arm, reaching around Steve to get to his luggage still sitting on the floor by the armchair. 

‘I got it, I’ll get it,’ Steve says, rushing to help, scooping his bag up and pulling back before he flings it into Bucky’s bare chest, managing to hand it to him carefully.

‘Thank you,’ Bucky says, half smile on his otherwise worried face. He opens the zip and rummages through his well folded clothes to find a pair of jeans and a hooded sweater. ‘God, nothing I have is even clean.’

‘It’s fine, it’s just us, Buck, nobody cares.’

‘I don’t really want to go down there looking like a bum,’ Bucky says, unfolding the sweater and checking for stains, bringing it to his nose to smell. Steve can smell it from where he is, it smells like Bucky, a bit sweaty, a bit spicy. Fucking amazing.

‘I have something, hang on,’ Steve grabs a cream cable knit sweater from one of his drawers and hands it to Bucky, ‘Here, take this, give me the rest of your stuff and we’ll do some laundry.’

Bucky pulls on his jeans, no underwear, and Steve has to swallow down the entirely inappropriate comment at the sight of all of that going on just outside the reach of his fingertips. Now is _not_ the time. The knitwear slides over the bulk of Bucky’s arms and chest as he pulls it on, and Steve would lament the loss of his view, except Bucky somehow manages to look like he was hired to model the fucking sweater, it’s unfair how beautiful he is really, and his hair is a damp wavy mess that only adds to the sexy, tousled aesthetic that’s working for him.

‘Steve,’ Bucky says, effectively breaking Steve out of his fugue state, ‘What if…’ Bucky’s eyes have been widened just shy of panic since he got up off the bed, ‘She’s my baby sister, Steve, I can’t… I can’t-’

‘Hey, hey,’ Steve rushes to pull Bucky to his chest, cup his hand around the back of Bucky’s neck, ‘She’s okay, she’s okay, and we’re going to fix it. I promise you.’ Which is stupid, he’s so fucking stupid. He can’t promise that, Jesus, as if the past three days haven’t proven he’s a fucking basket case on legs. But Bucky is breathing deeper, matching Steve’s breaths, and Steve is kneading his fingers up into the base of Bucky’s skull, he can feel him relaxing under his hands, just like he has every time. And Steve can give him this, right now, even if he might hate him for it later. 

‘Okay... okay.’

‘Let’s go talk to Nat.’

And Bucky nods against his collar bone, pulling himself back and visibly shaking himself off, ‘I’m ready,’ he says, looking at Steve, and Steve takes his hand to lead him downstairs.

  
  
  


Nat, Clint and Sam all look up as Steve and Bucky make their way into the kitchen. Nat’s eyebrow is raised in perfect disdain at Steve's somehow doing exactly what she'd warned him not to do.

‘Everybody okay?’ Clint asks, carrying trays of vegetables to the table from the oven. There are two huge roast chickens already waiting for them and Side dishes, gravy, the team have outdone themselves getting all this ready to make Bucky feel like a guest and not a kidnapping victim, but Bucky isn't paying any attention to the food right now. He has honed in on Nat with impressive focus.

'Please tell me everything.'

‘We don’t know a lot,’ Nat says, quickly holding out a hand to dispel any panic, ‘but we do know that she’s still in the tower and she’s currently with Pepper, which means she’s not in any immediate danger.’

‘Pepper?’ Bucky asks. Steve sits him down at the table, mostly to make sure he doesn’t fall anywhere, and also because they probably need to get some food into him if they can. 

‘Pepper is Tony’s assistant,’ Steve answers, ‘Basically his best friend, slash keeper, slash conscience.’ 

‘And she’s not Hydra?’

‘We’re about as sure as we can be that she isn’t. And Becka has been in Pepper’s office for about two hours now.’

‘How do you know all this?’

‘Phone records show him in contact with her earlier today. Then some eye witness statements from her neighbour and CCTV footage around the tower.

‘How do you know she’s with Pepper?’

Nat softens her 'analysis face' when she sits down next to Bucky, ‘I did some work for Pepper when I was still with Shield, I have a few things planted around her office that I can access for emergencies.’

‘Bucky’s head perks right up, ‘So you can see her?’

‘I can hear her.’

‘Oh god, please let me hear her.’ Nat looks to Steve then and Steve nods. Anything to help Bucky find his footing here. 

‘Give me a minute, Bucky, I’ll be right back.’ She gets up as Clint is bringing the last of the food to the table.

‘Guys, let's get food on plates, we can come up with a plan while we eat.’

‘I know you probably don’t feel like it, but you should try and eat something Bucky,’ Sam says

‘Oh, no, I’m not sure I can,’ Bucky says, shaking his head. But Steve knows Sam knows his shit, so he loads up a plate with light meat, potatoes, squash, green beans, stuffing and gravy and a huge chunk of bread (which he butters) and puts it in front of him. By which time Nat is back and handing Bucky the ridiculously small receiving device for her bugs, and the wireless earbuds for it, which he accepts, slowly and carefully, slots one into his ear and sits back, all with a blank look. Steve is sure Sam is worried Bucky is in some state of shock.

As they watch him, his face slowly morphs into something more desperate, and then slackens with relief. He must be able to hear Becka. 

‘Do you, do you need this back?’ Bucky asks quietly.

Nat nods, ‘I do, I’m sorry Bucky, I can’t have it running too much, Tony’s security tech is way beyond mine. The less we use it the better.’

Bucky hands it over reluctantly and Steve reaches over to take his hand, ‘She’s okay?’

‘She sounds fine,’ he says, ‘She was laughing…’

Nat goes to say something and Sam cuts her off with a look.

‘Okay, Buck, before we get into any details, we need to get some food in you, I want you to eat this please,’ Steve says, he uses as much gentle authority as he can find in his voice and Bucky reacts like a dream, his posture straightens a little, he looks at Steve and nods, turns to his food and picks up a fork to press it into a potato and cut it in half, pop it in his mouth.

It doesn’t seem like he’s enjoying it, but he’s chewing, he’s swallowing, and that’s all Steve needs from him.

‘Good, Bucky, keep it up,’ he says, same gentle lull, and Bucky seems to loosen up just a little more at the praise. Steve has filled his plate and he starts to eat too, the moist meat, the crispy skin, the thyme infused olive oil roasted potatoes, all of that amazing flavour that normally has Steve wanting to marry Clint is pushed to the background while Steve, and the others, now that they are eating too, watch Bucky and tries to calm the room with the power of his mind.

‘You want me to contact her, dont you?’ Bucky says after a few minutes of eating, everyone stops mid bite. ‘You want me to go in there and find out what Tony’s doing.’ 

Steve stares them down and they let him take the non-question.

‘We do want you to try and contact her. We need to get you a safe distance from here and then have you access your phone, return one of her phone calls.’ Steve hates, HATES, this plan. ‘What we do next is going to depend on what she says, how Becka sounds, why Tony has her.’

Bucky looks contemplative as he puts his fork down. ‘In what scenario do you think she would actually tell me, hey Tony Stark has kidnapped me, please come?’

‘If his plan was to bait you,’ Steve says. Which it might be. He knows Tony, and Tony loves nothing more than to make a spectacle of himself and the people around him. It's a defence mechanism somehow. One Steve does _not_ relate to. 

‘I can’t see that being the case, honestly,’ Nat adds, ‘From the tone of her voice and the pretty mundane stuff going on in the background.’

‘How long do we have to wait?’

‘Eat first, Buck, and then we can go for a drive.’ Steve needs to make sure that there’s no more fainting, that if they do this, they do it safe. A part of him is aware that, for totally selfish reasons, he wants everything to work so that Bucky won’t hate him. Three days. It’s been three days since he caught that plane, since he sat down next to probably the prettiest man he’s ever laid eyes on and ruined him in the best way he knows how, at thirty thousand feet. 

And now he’s prepared to compromise a two year mission for the chance to have some kind of future with him.

‘Yeah, you have to have some pie first, Bucky,’ Clint says, smiling his easy smile, ‘Sam made it especially to impress you.’

‘Hey!’ Sam points his fork at Clint, ‘Don’t call me out like that, I told you that in confidence.’

Clint has his palms out, ‘Sorry, sorry. I thought it was cute.’

‘It is cute,’ Bucky says, and Steve simultaneously wants to reach over and hug Sam for putting a smile on Bucky’s face, and strangle him for making him blush. And then Bucky looks over and goddamn _smirks_ at Steve, because he knows _exactly_ what he’s thinking. And Steve can’t even help it, can’t help the stupid grin on his face, because he’s so fucking gone.

‘Well…’ Sam ducks his head, ‘I just wanted to be a good host, you don’t all have to lose your shit about it.’

Nat is laughing under her breath and Clint looks smugly pleased with himself. A green bean flies across the table and hits Sam on the nose.

‘What. The _fuck,_ ’ he says, looking down at the offending bean that has bounced onto his plate. Clint is laughing and Natasha looks as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.

Steve shakes his head at all of them, but it’s working, what they’re doing, because Bucky looks ten times more relaxed suddenly. The antics, on top of having a plan in place, have eased the tension from his shoulders. And when Steve reaches under the table to lay his hand on Bucky’s thigh, Bucky smiles at him sideways, puts his own hand over Steve’s hand and squeezes.

Steve and Bucky take Clint's truck, once Nat has disabled the signal jammer, and Bucky's battery disconnected cell phone, and head into the night. 

Where their going doesn't matter so much as how far they go, so Steve picks a direction and just goes. North East makes the most tactical sense, Tony knows their starting point was Minneapolis, and heading south will only cement Iowa as a possible destination in between where they were and where they're going, but backtracking will remove that conclusion. If they head for Wisconsin, they can drive for an hour (at Steve's speed, not Nat's) they'll be far enough away that they could have been coming from anywhere between Rochester to Milwaukee to Chicago. 

Bucky is quiet and Steve doesn't push him to speak. They brought Sam's pie with them, it just seemed cruel to make him wait any longer, and the sight of Bucky eating pecan pie straight from his hand, never mind the little hums of pleasure, were torture on Steve's poor senses. But after that it's just the two of them and the soft sounds of the radio. 

It's late, after eight now, and he can tell Bucky is starting to panic again. Wordlessly, he picks up Bucky's wrist from his lap and brings it into his own, massaging gently at the pressure point there. Pressing deep enough to stimulate, he feels Bucky relax, not a lot but some. Better than nothing, and Steve wants to do what he can to mitigate his discomfort. If not for Steve... well, Bucky wouldn't even be here. He and Becka would be safe and home. 

Best not to let himself down that path. Not while he has work to do. What's done is done, Steve has to focus on what they need to do next.

They make it through Dubuque in well under an hour, so Steve keeps driving, Bucky's eyes fixed to every road marker. 

'We'll keep going to Mineral Point I think, Buck,' Steve says, wanting to break the silence as much as keep him up to speed on what Steve's thinking, 'another thirty minutes tops, and then we'll reconnect your battery.'

'Okay,' Bucky says quietly, then turns away from the window to look over at Steve, 'Thanks, sorry I'm just...'

'It's okay, I get it. You'll be talking to her soon though, Buck. It's gonna be okay.'

Bucky nods, turns back to the window, but he dislodges Steve's fingers from his wrist, slides it down just a little so that their hands line up, and threads their fingers together. Steve has to rein in the sigh he wants to just sink into, god, why does a simple squeeze of his hand have his heart beating like that. He swallows his joy and calms his racing heart with the kind of composure he's used to using on the battlefield. He can't afford to get flustered every time Bucky just gives away his affection like that (he doesn't deserve it, but this is the first thing in fifteen years that Steve has been willing to be selfish for and he wants to fucking _take it_ ).

He pulls over before they get too close to town, not onto a sealed road, but onto the shoulder of the one-fifty-one and then through some brush, to a copse of trees off the highway, giving them cover from the road, and from anyone overhead. 

‘You ready?’ Steve asks.

Bucky nods. He pulls the phone and battery from his lap, reconnecting them and putting everything right before turning the device on, letting it boot up.

‘Here we go.’

It starts to light up and the barrage of notifications come through, one after another. The phone must be on silent, because they don’t hear anything, but Steve can see the pop ups keep coming as Bucky watches them, face blank. Once they die down he goes into his messages and scrolls through.

‘Jesus,’ he says, hand going to his mouth, cupping it in an unconscious gesture, ‘It’s been off for one fucking day. Okay,’ he lets his hand drop and rolls his shoulders, ‘Only six of these are from Becka. Three voice messages are hers maybe.’

He taps a few more times at the screen and then puts the phone to his ear. Steve doesn’t need it on speaker to hear everything as clearly as Bucky can. 

A tinny, automated service tells him he has ten messages. He skips through the first three from someone that might be Bucky’s boss. Then there’s a message from Tony.

‘James Buchanan Barnes, you fucking hung. Up. On. Me. Call me back. Your boss is an idiot.’

Bucky snorts a laugh at the terse message but Steve can see the stress in the tension of his shoulders. He lets the next message play.

‘James. Okay, you missed your goddamn flight. You're not calling anybody back. You had someone with you last night, I need to talk to you about that. Asap. Call me, or just, call someone, okay? Fuck-’ The message cuts out there, but Tony is starting to sound less annoyed and more worried. 

Bucky lets out a deep breath he’d been holding. He lets the next message play.

‘Hey Buck,’ it starts, a female voice Steve’s never heard before, and from the way Bucky sucks in his breath, it must be Becka. ‘So I got like a super weird phone call, and you haven’t replied back to my texts yet. You should have landed like two hours ago… Can you ring me back and um, I know… I mean of course you’re fine, I just… It’d be good to hear from you. Okay. That’s it, love you.’

‘Christ, Becks,’ Bucky says under his breath. Steve can see, even in the low light, that his eyes are wet with tears. ‘I’m such an asshole.’

Steve wants to interrupt and tell him no, Steve’s the asshole. But the next message is starting and he’s too afraid to break Bucky’s concentration. 

‘James. This is Tony Stark again. Listen… I’m back in New York now. I don’t know where you are, I can’t find you which is… well that has me a little worried, I gotta say. And I don’t like being worried. Anyway there’s… Okay. I’m… just. Fuck-’ It cuts out again, like the last message. And there's something in his voice that's definitely not normal for Tony.

Bucky looks over at Steve, and he looks as confused as Steve feels right now. That was far from coherent. And it doesn’t help give them any clues to Tony’s end game here. Except that it's so far from cold or collected that Steve would have been expecting from someone in control of a Hydra cell. 

They both keep silent as the next message starts to play.

‘Buck? Um so…’ Steve has to put his hand on Bucky at the way he’s folding in on himself. It’s Becka again and she sounds… not great, ‘Tony Stark has called me a couple of times. I didn’t even know you were working with Stark Industries… I’m… I’m starting to freak out a little okay? Anyway, someone called Pepper is coming here to pick me up? And um, I’m not sure but I think they want to ask me some questions about you. I don’t even. God, they have to know I don’t know anything about your research. I don’t know what’s happened, but it feels… it feels like it might be bad. I just… if you disappeared to some swanky hotel with that guy you were telling me about, maybe just come up for air long enough to call me back? Anyway I… I love you so much B.’

Bucky is shaking, and Steve knows. He knows because he read the file. He knows what Bucky and Becka went through as kids, he knows how Bucky lost his arm. He knows how trauma can skew your view of the world. And the fact that they are so worried for each other, well… Steve can't fully understand, he never had any siblings himself, but he can imagine the kind of memories that come back in situations like this and he leans over the center console of the car to wrap Bucky in his arms.

Bucky is holding his breath, he’s waiting for the next message.

When it starts to play it's a voice Bucky probably doesn’t recognise, but Steve does. It’s Pepper.

‘Bucky, Hi. This is Pepper Potts, I’m Tony’s executive assistant. I just wanted to check in and let you know Becka is here with us. We’re having a bit of a girls night in, there’s a great spa here at the tower. And in case anyone was looking for her, well, we’ve got an excellent security system here and it's a very safe place to spend a night. If you can, give her a call, or send a message. We’ll be glad to hear from you.’

Okay, that has Bucky sitting up a little straighter. It doesn’t sound like a threat, at least not to Steve. It sounds like they think Becka might be a target and they're letting Bucky know she’s in safe hands. 

Bucky’s head has shifted out from under Steve’s, where it had been enveloped by Steve’s serum enhanced shoulders and arms. He looks up at Steve and his eyes are narrowed, his eyebrow cocked. But there’s one message left. And it’s Becka again.

‘Hey Buck! Okay, I may have had one too many cocktails, but Pepper and Tony are keeping me company and they’re lovely Buck. I’m so glad you’re going to be working here,’ Bucky’s head does snap back to Steve’s at that, ‘so yeah, they think you’re with a friend of theirs and that you might just have no reception. Anyway, I’m feeling heaps better. But definitely _call me back_ asshole, okay,’ she says the last with a laugh that has Bucky laughing softly, ‘Love you. Kay? Be good! Bye-bye-bye!’

'Okay,' Bucky says, taking a deep breath, 'Okay, she sounds... she sounds okay.'

'She does,' Steve says gently, rubbing at the tightness in Bucky's shoulders to help calm him down.

'So I guess, here I go…' and Steve watches him flick to a new screen, pressing down on his contact list to make the call.

'Bucky! Holy shit, where the fudge have you been bro?' To Steve's ears she's sounding a little slurred, and Bucky is shaking his head with soft laughter.

'Oh Becks, you're into the good cocktails huh?'

'Pepper's liquor is top shelf my dude,'

'But you're okay?'

'Yeah, yeah, yeah! M'good. M'fine. Gonna stay here in this fancy room that's like all robot powered or whatever.'

Bucky laughs, 'Yeah okay.'

'But you? You're fine too? Oh my god, you had me so worried, where have you been?'

'Ah,' he looks at Steve guiltily, 'Yeah so that hot guy on the plane that gave me his number?'

And Steve is smiling back at him, he must have said something to Becka about their episode on the plane.

'Oh, what! You did not!'

'Yeah we're just hanging out-'

'Hanging out, Bucky Barnes, please.'

Steve is laughing silently now at the fond exasperation on Bucky's face.

'Anyway,' Bucky says, regaining his composure with a crick of his neck, sounding casual 'Yeah my phone died so, I only just got your messages.' Bucky is doing so well, keeping his voice calm, selling it all as a misunderstanding (Steve won't be telling anyone about how much that turns him on… he's just so effortlessly competent.)

'I mean, I wouldn't have been so freaked,' Becka is saying, sounding a little less slurred now, 'Only multi Billionaire _Tony Stark_ calls to ask if I've heard from you and then some skeevy guy calls to tell me I need to file a missing persons report-'

Bucky sits up straight, 'What skeevy guy, Becks?'

'I don't know he said he worked for Stark and that you were meant to be getting a grant or whatever but then you missed your flight under like, extenuating circumstances or some shit,'

Steve and Bucky share a look. That sounds questionable.

'But it wasn't Tony?'

'Nah it was some creepy sounding dude, with a name like Obi-Wan or something.' 

Obi-Wan? Bucky mouths at Steve… and Steve's brain has clicked into Focus because Obadiah? Obadiah Stane? That's Tony's CEO. Why would he be calling Becka? Himself? 

'We need to call Tony,' Steve says quietly and Bucky nods.

'Yeah, I wouldn't worry about that Becks, I'm um, I may have, like, told my boss a fib to get a few extra days off so… I have some damage control to do but,' he gives Steve an unreadable look, 'worth it though.'

'Haha, right, you get that dick, bro,' Steve has to stifle a huff of laughter. 

Bucky is spluttering a little ungracefully, 'Becks, oh my god.'

'What? You deserve good things, take time off, get fucked, get pampered, have a fucking holiday, you never do shit like this, it's _good_ for you.'

'Ah yeah, well… I'm sorta, doing all of the above so…'

'Good. Just don't disappear on me again okay?'

'Okay, I'll call you again soon.'

'I love you, you idiot, okay?'

'I love you too Becks.'

The line goes dead as Becka ends the call. Bucky looks at Steve and it's like all the tension from before has lifted right off him. And yes, Steve's glad Becka's okay, but this is Intel they can use. 

Obadiah Stane. He’s been a suspect because of the subtly corrupt money trails that Nat had uncovered, but all the calls, all the deals had been done from Tony's computer. Tony had signed off on everything.

But Tony also trusts Obadiah like a father. Too much. Steve has always thought so. 

They have to call Tony.

'Buck. We might have to call Tony,' he says to Bucky, and Bucky is nodding, his face serious, though the lines of worry have all but disappeared.

'Okay,' Bucky grabs up his phone but doesn't dial, 'What should I say?'

Steve is messaging Nat through one of the secure transmitters and her response is immediate. If they've pushed Obadiah into showing his hand, Tony could be in danger. Or they might push Tony into showing _his_ hand, whichever way this is about to go. 

It's a risk worth taking.

'Just tell him what you told Becka, he's going to ask you about me. Tell him the truth okay?'

'Seriously?'

'I want to know what he knows that has him so worried. Telling him you're with me, that you know me, might get him talking.'

'Okay… I'll see what I can do…'

He hits the call-back button and it doesn't ring for long before someone picks up.

'Bucko!'

'Mister Stark?' 

'Fuck off with that Mister Stark bullshit, seriously.'

'Tony, hello,' Bucky corrects tentatively, 'I’m um, returning your call,'

'Returning my call, Jesus Christ, you know you're killin me kid,'

'I don't-'

'You hang up on me, your boss calls to tell me your refusing the grant money - that wasn't nice by the way, It took me actual time to get that funding personally approved - and then you miss your fucking flight?'

'I'm sorry abou-'

'Never mind, listen, last night, when I called you, you were with a guy,'

'Yes, I do meet guys occasionally Stark, I-'

'No, cool your jets kid, I don't give a fuck who your fucking, only this guy, he might be a... er, a friend of mine,' Bucky looks up at Steve at the way Tony says _friend_ , and Steve knows what Bucky's thinking but that's not what Tony means. Tony can't say friend without the pause because he doesn't consider them that way, Steve always reminded Tony too much of Howard. And it sounds like he feels guilty about that still. 

'Who, Steve?' Bucky asks, to let Tony fill in the blanks.

'Yeah, Steve Grant…' Like Tony has forgotten that he already gave Bucky Steve's identity last night. Like he's not sure what he can and can't say.

(Which Steve has not forgiven Tony for, by the way. Forcing his hand… he had big plans for Bucky last night, and running out and leaving him to potentially drop, alone, with Nat having to take on surveillance, was not one of them.

And Bucky could've chosen not to forgive _Steve_ for that… he's well aware. But by some miracle, well… here they are.)

'Steve Rogers,' Bucky says as Steve nods.

He hears Tony suck in a breath. 

'Right right, ah… Jarvis?' Tony says, as if he’s talking to someone beside him, 'How's this line?'

'Umm Tony?' Bucky asks, ‘I know-’

'Okay kid, I can't talk to you, this is a super un-secure line. How fast can you get here?'

Steve can see Bucky reeling from the rapid fire conversation, Tony is nothing if not manic at all times. It takes some getting used to. 

'To New York?'

'Yeah dumb-ass, New York.'

Steve shakes his head. No way is he sending Bucky in yet.

'It might be a while…'

'Tell him you can get to a secure line though,' Steve instructs quietly.

'I can get to a secure line though, and call you back?' Bucky is following instructions better than most of his team at Shield ever had, hydra and non-hydra alike.

'Yeah, yes. Do that. I'll ah. I'll just be here. Waiting to hear from you I guess, like a fucking thirteen year old with a crush.' 

'Okay I better-' the line is dead before Bucky can even finish. 'He hung up on me!'

'We need to get back to Nat,' Steve says.

Bucky nods, breaking open his phone and disconnecting the battery, 'Okay yeah.' He starts to put his seat belt on and then changes his mind, leaning in to Steve instead. 'Thank you,' he says, reaching up to kiss Steve softly. 'Thank you for letting me call her. She's fine, she's having a girls night,' he says, chuckling self consciously with his forehead resting against Steve’s. 

Steve kisses him back, 'I'm just glad you don't have to worry.' He cups Bucky’s cheek with his palm and runs a thumb over that plump, pink bottom lip, so soft, ‘You were so good, Buck, you did so good. You’re amazing.’ Steve is having trouble keeping contained just exactly how impressed he is with Bucky's entire performance.

And Bucky… Bucky is having trouble containing it too, if the way he kisses Steve back is any indication, the way he presses his whole body into Steve at the praise, opens his mouth to him, licks into him. 

'You did better than I could have dreamed, Bucky, you were perfect.'

'Oh, god,' Bucky moans into Steve's open mouth and suddenly Steve has a lap-full of gorgeous, gasping Bucky, who's climbed right over the hand brake and is steadying himself with hands on Steve's chest. 

'Perfect, so fucking perfect,' Steve is saying into Bucky, their words getting lost between the press of lips and tongues and teeth. And Clint's truck is big, but it's not big enough for both of them to rock against each other like this, with the steering wheel hampering Steve from thrusting up into Bucky's straining cock. 'Hang on,' Steve says and Bucky reaches up to grab Steve around the neck as he opens the door and steps out of the truck, keeping Bucky in his lap with one hand under his ass.

'Steve!'

'I got you, hang on,' Steve doesn't stop kissing him as he steps to the back door of the dual cab and opens it with his free hand, depositing Bucky gently into the back seat. 'I need these off,' he says, by clicking open the button in Bucky's fly, pulling the zip and ripping them off. He's met with the sight of Bucky's nakedness, his cock hard up against Steve's cable knit sweater, his ass still a little loose and red from Steve fucking him earlier, and his thick thighs just begging for Steve's mouth on them. 

Bucky has propped himself up on his elbows to watch Steve pull off his own clothes, tossing them into the footwell of the backseat. He slides in above Bucky and reaches for his sweater, pulling it up as Bucky stretches his arms up to accommodate, revealing every inch of soft, smooth olive skin, those dark pink nipples, the lean definition of his pecs, the shoulders, the join of his metal prosthetic, the small scars that run out from what must have been an awful wound once upon a time. 

Steve kisses softly at the scars, moves up as he tosses the sweater and latches his mouth onto the skin at Bucky's throat, licking and sucking his way up to his incredible jaw, the slight stubble growing there. He bites back into his plush lips, smiling at the sound it draws out of Bucky. 

'Gotta get my mouth on you, baby,' Steve whispers into his ear, he cards his hand into the soft waves of Bucky's hair, pulls at it a little too hard, loving the way he sucks in a breath, arches up into Steve. 'Will you let me? Let me wreck you?'

'Yes,' Bucky nods frantically, pulling at his own hair in Steve's tight grip, 'Please.’

It’s all Steve needs to hear to slide back down Bucky’s body, gliding his hands down as he goes, brushing along the sensitive skin at Bucky’s sides, making him squirm, and then down across his hips, over his thighs, and then grips under Bucky’s thighs to push them up, bite at the meat of them, suck the skin into his mouth. God he tastes like salt and spice and apple, and he can smell the come starting to bead at the tip of his cock, it's good, it's so good. 

‘Smell so good, Buck, taste so sweet for me.’

Bucky is rocking his hips up into Steve in tiny little thrusts, he’s making those noises, those gasping choked off moans that Steve loves. He’s biting at his lip and reaching down to stroke at himself, and Steve can’t have that. No. Only Steve gets to touch.

‘No, no Buck,’ he lifts himself up and grabs his shirt from the floor, taking Bucky’s hands with him as he goes, ‘No touching,’ 

‘Steve,’ Bucky says, a little petulance in the turn of his mouth, the cut off exasperation of the word, and Steve remembers that tone. It makes him smile. 

‘Be good, Bucky,’ he admonishes gently. Bucky huffs and smacks his head back down on the seat, tilting backwards to watch as Steve loops his shirt around Bucky’s wrists and through the interior handle of the door. It’s messy and it could be pulled right off, especially with that metal arm, but Bucky will be good, he trusts him, and so he lets it be sloppy. He doesn’t have any safety restraints, and he won't risk hurting Bucky, so this will have to do. ‘When we get back to New York, I’m gonna tie you up in my ropes, get you all trussed up for me, have my way with you,’ Steve is saying, moving down to Bucky’s face, tugging at his hair again to pull their faces together. Bucky’s expression is full of something, joy maybe, as Steve nuzzles into his cheek, presses his lips against the sharp cheekbones that he wants to worship. ‘You stay there baby, okay?’

‘Okay,’ Bucky says, and it's so soft, none of the cheek from a moment ago, but Steve doesn’t have time to unpack that because he’s got a job to do now. He’s gotta wreck Bucky like he promised. 

He moves back down to Bucky’s cock, ignores it for now though, and instead uses his tongue to taste the bruised muscle of Bucky’s hole. Carefully, he presses into the still loose, swollen skin and licks around it, Bucky trying and failing to keep from grinding down onto Steve’s mouth. He doesn’t mind though. He can push right back, push his tongue slowly inside Bucky, taste all the heavy, salty sweat pooling there. He thrusts his tongue in and out, still so slow, trailing his hands up and down the back of Bucky’s thick, gorgeous thighs that are now framing his face. 

It doesn’t take long before he’s lost himself again, lost in the taste and the smell of Bucky, the sounds he’s making, the grind of his hips, the pressure of his thighs squeezing around him. He’s thrusting and licking and sucking faster and more erratically, kneading his fingers into the flesh of Bucky’s thigh’s, no doubt leaving marks, marks that he’ll be able to touch and taste later, because Bucky isn’t just another random encounter. He isn’t just another lonely stranger for Steve to carve out time with, exercise his control over, and then leave behind. 

Bucky is coming home to the farm to curl up next to him, to burrow into him, to wake up beside him, rumpled and warm and happy.

Bucky might be someone Steve gets to keep. 

Steve is on his knees, with his head buried in Bucky’s ass, and his own cock is so hard it’s aching and just the idea of Bucky is enough to have him losing control, pressing his fingers in beside his tongue to stroke at Bucky’s prostate and hear him cry out, to hit that spot over and over as Bucky grinds down on him, chasing the pressure, arching his back right up off the seat, Steve trusting that his hands are still above his head, not even needing to check, not able to tear himself away from his task until suddenly Bucky is clamping down, his muscles spasming as he comes, painting his own stomach with it.

Steve pulls back reluctantly, kissing the underside of Bucky’s thighs as he goes, licking the mess off Bucky’s stomach as he passes, which has Bucky moaning still. His head is still thrown back against the upholstery, his back is sinking down, his body relaxing. 

He looks up at Steve as he moves over him and he’s smiling. That sweet, sweet smile that has Steve kissing him again. He can’t get enough.

‘Can you take all this for me, Buck?’ he asks, as he moves his lips past Bucky’s lips and positions his hips over Bucky’s face, kneeling on either side of his head on the seat, desperate now for his own release. Bucky’s eyes are shining, pupils blown out with hunger as he nods, opening his mouth nice and wide to take all of Steve. And he’s not gonna last long, sighing softly as he sinks down onto Bucky's tongue, ‘Gonna come all over that beautiful face, baby, okay?’

Bucky hums something, probably an affirmative, but the vibration travels up through Steve’s dick and has him thrusting a little further down Buck’s relaxed throat. To which Bucky actually laughs, choking a little on the obstruction. But he’s also nodding again around Steve filling him up and so Steve just lets himself go, short sharp thrusts, fucking Bucky’s face, that delicious slide in and out, until he feels his orgasm building.

He pulls out just in time to spill all over Bucky’s pretty lips and those goddamn cheekbones, looking like a piece of art under Steve, and Steve is climbing back down to straddle Buck’s hips, lean in and clean him up again with his tongue. Bucky is laughing and sucking in sharp breaths as he gets worked over. His fucking hands still held up over his head wrapped up in Steve’s shirt, exactly how Steve left him.

‘So fucking perfect for me, Buck,’ he says, collapsing down next to him, untucking the shirt from around his hands, running his fingers along the metal of his prosthetic. 

Bucky tucks his arms up into his chest and nuzzles himself into Steve, fitting his face right up into Steve’s shoulder. ‘As much as I don’t wanna move right now,’ he says, sleepy and muffled by Steve’s skin, ‘We probably need to call Tony back, like, well, twenty minutes ago.’

Steve laughs because Bucky is right, and laughs at the absurdity of letting himself get totally sidetracked by a pretty face. More than that, by everything that Bucky is and means to Steve, that he doesn’t want to think too deeply about. He needs to get his focus back to where it should be.

‘Right, you're right.’ He sits them up carefully and climbs over into the front of the cab to get tissues from Clint's glove compartment. He passes a handful to Bucky and uses his own to wipe the saliva and residual come off himself to get back into his jeans and now very wrinkled shirt. Bucky is gingerly pulling his own jeans on and fitting the sweater over his sex mussed hair. He looks dishevelled and rumpled and thoroughly wrecked. Steve wishes he could just keep kissing him all night. ‘Okay, I have a secure line we can use, so I’m gonna keep driving east for a bit, and when we’re far enough away from here, you can call him back.’ 

Bucky nods along while he tries to fix his hair with his fingers.

‘And then you need to get some sleep while I drive back to the farm.’ 

Bucky stops nodding to smile at Steve indulgently and mutters a quiet, ‘Yeah, yeah,’ as he shakes his head at Steve’s coddling. 

As they buckle back in and Steve reverses them from the cover of trees, Steve feels his heart rate pick up again. 

This could be it, they might finally get the answers they've been searching so long for. Maybe Steve’s life can go back to normal. 

And maybe Bucky will be right here next to him when it does. 

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> So there's one left folks!
> 
> And see! As promised, everything is going to turn into a fluffy dreamland for these boys (mostly).
> 
> And as always, come find me in the comments (I love hearing from you! - like, so much (too much probably)) Or on Tumblr and Twitter:
> 
> [darter-blue](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/darter-blue) on tumblr
> 
> [@beclouise13](https://twitter.com/beclouise13) on twitter


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